The School of Earth Sciences is celebrating their success in the latest round of Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project Grants. The smallest School in the Faculty of Science at The University of Queensland was successful in obtaining funding for three grants totaling $1.1 million dollars.

In awarding the grants Senator Carr said, “Many of the projects being funded will help us create a richer, fairer and greener future for all Australians.”

This is especially true for the grants awarded to Dr Gilbert Price, Professor Gregory Webb and Professor Hans Muhlhaus from the School of Earth Sciences.

Dr Price will lead a team improving dating techniques and developing a reliable timing for the extinction of Australian Pleistocene megafauna (giant land mammals, lizards birds) using museum fossil collections

“Our ability to understand the timing of prehistoric extinction events is critical, but can only be achieved by reliable dating methods,” said Dr Price.

‘This project will adopt several new and exciting methodologies in the direct dating of fossils to determine the timing of extinction of the Australia’s extinct megafauna.”

“The new dates will help us to pinpoint the driver of the extinctions: climate change or humans.”

The team led by Professor Gregory Webb will investigate climate records and geomorphological development of coral reefs in the southern Great Barrier Reef.

“Very little is known about how the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) has responded or may respond to predicted environmental change and/or degradation,” explained Professor Webb.

“The project will reconstruct the recent biological and physical history of reefs in the southern GBR in order to better understand how they may react to future environmental changes.”

Using cutting edge computer simulations and experiments, the team led by Professor Muhlhaus will study hydraulic erosion of granular structures that can cause vast damage to infrastructure and buildings in Australia and overseas.

The project aims to improve the predictability and controllability of flooding related disasters caused by erosion.

The ARC funding will begin in 2012 and continue for three years.

Media: Hannah Hartig (hannah.hartig@uq.edu.au)